"Beauty" Had Lots of Guests at Screenings Worldwide, including a Preview of a Summer Outdoor Theatrical IMAGES

An ensemble from the upcoming HART production of "Beauty and the Beast" invites you "Be Our Guest" in a short clip from their production number at Marquee Pullman Square.

They will host a tea party next month at the rose garden.

Meanwhile, the release of the live action film has roared to five new boxoffice records, according to Hollywood Reporter.

Based on estimates (finalized on Monday) , "Beauty and the Beast" will top $170 million North American admissions and $350 million on a global level. Previously, "Finding Dory" ($135 million) held the record in North America for a PG rated debut.

"Beauty" has become the #7 top grossing movie in North America surpassing the final entry in the Harry Potter series, which, incidentally, starred Emma Watson. The film has a skew to females and delivered outgrossing two prior strong women young adult favorites "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" and "Twilight Saga: New Moon."

Disney has previously remade classics such as "Alice in Wonderland, " "Maleficent," "Cinderella" and "Jungle Book" with the Tim Burton directed and Johnny Depp starring "Alice" bringing in slightly less than $120 million over the March 3-5 weekend in 2010.

"Beauty" ranks as the second largest opening in less than a year. Only, Captain America Civil War in May 2016 gross more --- $179 million. "Beauty" will claim the record for the highest grossing March film besting Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice ($166 million) which debuted March 25-27, 2016. The total surpasses "Rogue One A Star Wars Story" which pulled $155 million opening in the Christmas season.

By all projections, the live action film will join the billion dollar club before it retires to home and small screen markets. Interestingly, "Beauty" played extremely well on large format screens XD, Extreme, IMAX, debunking an argument that a cross section of movie fans of all demographics would abandon their home big screens for the right tentpole.

A survey by Deadline indicated that a large percentage of viewers wanted to see it again -- in a cinema.

Finally, an "exclusively gay moment" comment from director Bill Condon has stirred innuendo and controversy. Slate wrote: "The new LeFou is about as gay as the original LeFou, who dog-whistled in the 1991 film with winking lyrics like "you can ask any Tom, Dick, or Harry/and they'll tell you whose team they prefer to be on." That's triggered over reaction, especially since the "contact" amounts to about two seconds during a waltz. LeFou supplies much comedic foil circumstances too, so it's presumptuous to label all his movements and words as gender related.

Since LeFou's passions are directed at Gaston, the struck on himself price Belle won't marry, you have to continue the proposition ... why is Gaston so feverishly pursuing Belle and the first to utter "kill the beast?"